


there was a time before you (but I can’t remember it now)

by river_soul



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-17
Updated: 2014-05-17
Packaged: 2018-01-25 10:08:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1644941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/river_soul/pseuds/river_soul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time they kill for Kate she’s two days shy of her 19th birthday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	there was a time before you (but I can’t remember it now)

**Author's Note:**

> I took some liberties with Scott's character here. Also, many thanks to theserpentgod for all her excellent beta work!

The pact they have with the group of hunters in Bogota goes bad two weeks into the job. One of the men figures out exactly what Richie is after he takes a bullet to the chest without a scratch to show for it. He kills two of their men before it's over and it takes Kate and Seth together to convince Richie they should go south, to follow rumors of Santanico and Carlos to Peru instead of staying to fight.

\--

They settle in Lima.

Seth and Richie learn to avoid the local hunters as they make their way through nests in the area one by one. Kate works on her Spanish and digs for more information on Santanico. No one says Scott’s name and if they hear how she cries, thankful and ashamed, in the shower each night after a hunt when they don’t find her brother they never say anything to her.

Kate knows they’ll catch up with Scott eventually and it won't be to save him - Scott isn’t like Richie. Whatever Carlos did to her brother hollowed him out. He took everything that was good and kind about Scott and Kate’s terrified when the time comes to put him to rest she’ll falter, just like she did with her father. Seth and she never talk about that night, when she’d nearly let that thing her father had become rip her throat out. Her hesitation that night is part of the reason he won’t let her hunt with them.  There's another reason too, buried under the sad, wanting way Seth looks at her when he thinks she can’t see him.

They don't talk about that either.

\--

The men from Columbia catch up with them just before her birthday. They take her when Seth and Richie are on a hunt and she’s alone in the motel room. Kate fights, knife sharp in her hand just like Richie taught her, but there are too many of them. She goes down hard, the butt of a rifle to the back of her head and wakes up tied to a chair in an empty warehouse on the edge of town.  Richie and Seth come for her, they always will she knows but she’s not prepared for the raw violence of her rescue. They’ve killed men before, Kate remembers that night in the Titty Twister but it’s something else entirely to see it up close, to watch them cut down these living, breathing men with ruthless efficiency. She wonders then if maybe Seth was right to keep her from this, to try and shield her from the awful things they have to do in their search of Santanico.

When all the men are dead Seth won’t quite look at her but Richie rushes to her, cuts her free and pulls her up against his chest.  There’s a fine mist of red along the underside of his jaw and the hand he curls around her arm is wet, slick with blood. She feels bile climb up her throat but Richie holds her to him when she struggles. He breathes her name out like a prayer _Kate Kate Kate Katie Kate_ against the crown of her head.

_\--_

Kate makes it back to the motel before she throws up. She squeezes her eyes shut and breathes deep but the darkness behind her eyelids is tinged red. She is helpless to stop the memory of them killing. 

_Richie’s movements were practiced and easy, an odd sort of grace to the way he pulled the knife across their throats while every strike and blow from Seth was carefully restrained and calculated but no less efficient at taking a life._

She feels sick again when she see’s the bloody handprints on her arms and smear of blood across her cheek from Richie. She strips off her clothes and scrubs her skin raw under the lukewarm spray of the shower until the water runs clear and she can breathe again.

\--  

When Kate leaves the bathroom it’s only her and Seth in the motel room. He's sitting shirtless on the edge of the bed, an open bottle of tequila by his feet. She can see a few shallow cuts on his chest but there’s a deep cut along the side of his arm where one of the men got too close.  He’s trying to patch himself up but his hand is shaking with the effort.

“Let me help,” she tells him but Seth grabs her wrist when she reaches for the needle; the pressure is gentle enough that Kate knows she could pull away if she wanted to. “I’m sorry,” she says, after the silence has stretched out between them. “I’m sorry you had to do that for me.”  

 “There's nothing to be sorry about, Princess," he says with an easy shrug but Kate watches his face, sees something surfacing, cresting in the shadows. She knows the violence he’s capable of but he isn’t like Richie. Killing’s never easy for him.

She wants to tell him she understands, that she knows how hard he works to keep her safe and still give her the revenge she wants for her brother and father but the words get caught in her throat. When she steps forward into the space between his legs the hand on her wrist tightens painfully. She ignores the discomfort and leans forward to press a soft, dry kiss against his unmarred cheek. She tries to remember the last time he let her get this close, when she touched him and it wasn’t for necessity or an accident.  He’s so unlike Richie, always so careful to keep himself apart from her but Kate isn’t blind. She sees the way he watches her with Richie, how he looks to her on nights like these for benediction and salvation, eyes swimming with want and shame and maybe something like love.

When her lips ghost over the corner of his mouth he jerks her away from him. “Kate,” he warns.

She ducks her head, feels warm with embarrassment. “Just let me help you,” she says. “Don’t shut me out,” she pleads, need clear enough in her voice that he breathes out harshly and lets her go. 

He doesn't stop her when she reaches for the needle again. He looks away and takes a swig from the tequila bottle as she starts to sew the skin together, blood welling up between her fingers. It’s too quiet in the hotel room with just the sound of her breathing and the sharp grunts of pain that Seth makes. The silence makes her want to crawl out of her own skin so she says, “Where’s Richie?,” even though she already knows the answer. 

“Taking care of the bodies,” Seth tells her, gaze fixed on a spot just above her shoulder as he downs another mouthful of tequila. They don’t talk much after that and Kate concentrates on sewing the neat line of his skin back together. By the time she's done nearly half the bottle is empty and Seth’s expression has gone a little glassy.  He must be drunk she thinks because he doesn’t try and stop her when she takes the bottle from him and goes to sit outside and wait for Richie, Seth’s blood still on her hands.

\--

Richie gets back to the motel just before dawn.

He wakes Kate with a gentle hand on her shoulder, leading her into the small, cramped bathroom.  She barely has enough time to close the door behind them before he pushes her up against the slick, tiled wall. He kisses her, opened mouth and brutal, shoving the fabric of her nightgown up around her waist.  “ _I need you, I need you,”_ he whispers into her mouth, lifting her up easily and urging her to slide her legs around his hips.

He fucks her against the wall, tongue warm and hot as he licks the dried blood from her fingers.  From behind half closed eyes she sees the flash of his teeth, hears the grunt of his satisfaction.  He smells like sweat and blood and she sobs against the hand over her mouth as he drives into her a little too sharply. After a moment the pain fades out and she relaxes against him. She lets  the strain and worry of everything that’s been weighing her down slip out between her ragged breaths as he moves inside her. When his hand tightens around her wrist Kate knows he’s close and she steadies her breath against the low, guttural sound he makes when he finishes inside her.  He holds her against the bathroom wall after, breathing out the aftershock of his release against the curl of her hair. She doesn’t protest, legs shaky and weak against the side of his hips. 

“I wish I could kill them all again,” he says into the silence and the intensity, the raw truth in his words is frightening. Kate’s not afraid of Richie, she hasn’t been since he came for her in the temple but she feels suddenly afraid _for_ him.

 “It’s ok, I’m ok,” she promises when he draws a shuddering breath against her neck.

“I can’t lose you,” he tells her, voice low and wanting as she rests a hand at the base of his neck. She strokes along the sharp line of his back until she feels the tension bleed out of him and he sags against her.

\--                   

After the night with the Colombians Richie spends more and more evenings by himself, disappearing into the city and leaving her alone with Seth. Richie never tells her where he goes and she doesn’t ask him but every morning when he comes home and crawls into bed beside her Kate thinks he seems disappointed.  
  
Most nights they are alone Kate throws herself into research, working leads and networking with other hunters they’ve met. Seth usually works beside her on the other bed, cleaning guns and sharpening stakes. Some nights he takes her to the bar with him and liquor helps to settle the unease that's grown between them since the night she sewed him up. Kate likes those night best because when he drinks he talks about before, tells her funny stories about the odd jobs he and Richie pulled when they were young.  He makes her forget, just for a few hours that her life has fallen apart.  
  
\--

It's well past midnight by the time they leave the little bar near the motel. Neither of them are exactly drunk but Kate enjoys the loose way her body feels, skin flush against the cool night air. Seth's alert, ever watchful but they walk together in a comfortable sort of silence that Kate’s missed. When they get back in the motel room Seth gives her a little half smile over his shoulder as he unlocks the door.  The expression on his face is so unguarded and open that it steals the breath from her. She realizes then, heart tight in her chest, just how much she wants him, how much she _needs_ him.

“Seth,” she says and when he turns around to face her for a moment she feels her resolve falter because it’s small and fragile, this thing between them. She watches the expression on his face shift from curious to concerned when she doesn't speak again. Kate surges forward suddenly, lips crashing against his. At first he’s stiff and unresponsive and fear laces through her hot and tight before he finally moves his mouth against hers, slow and sweet. He kisses her with such tenderness and Kate can feel how his body trembles, the way he restrains himself for her. He's so different from his brother who takes and takes, swallowing whole all that she has to give and more.

“It’s ok,” she breathes. “It’s ok,” and then he’s kissing her again, mouth warm and insistent, the sheer want and desperation behind it enough to make her ache for him. It feels like she’s drowning in her own senses, in the soft wetness of his mouth and the burn of his stubble against her skin. When he pulls away from her after a moment the look on his face makes her breath catch.

"What about Richie?" He asks and Kate aches with the uncertainty she can hear in his voice.

"I belong to both of you. I was yours the day my family died,” she tells him, helpless against the familiar pull of grief and regret that any mention of her father and Scott dredges up between them.  It’s still difficult to think of them now, to remember that these two brothers are all that’s left to her.

 “And I love you,” she whispers.

“No you don’t sweetheart,” he tells her softly. “I’m no good for you, just a fucking thief. A killer,” he says and the self-loathing she sees swimming in his eyes terrifies her. She can see him withdrawing from her again, pulling away and walling himself off.

Kate doesn’t think she can go back to that again.

“You don’t get to decide that,” she tells him, ghosting her lips over his sweetly. He doesn’t kiss her back but he doesn’t push her away either. “I need you. I _love_ you,” she tells him, voice firm and sure. 

“Kate."

She can hear the resolve in his voice weakening and the relief when he finally shifts forward, pressing himself against her fully, is enough to make her want to cry.  He kisses her hungrily then, pulling the clothes from their bodies and pressing himself tightly to her. Seth doesn’t pull away until they fall together on the bed, the heavy weight of him enough to knock the breath from her. Heat curls in her belly as he learns the feel of her, light touches growing steadily firmer. His fingers are warm and insistent inside her and it’s all she can do to let her breath ease out of her, long and slow as her body falls apart underneath him.

“Please,” she begs as he slides inside her and _oh_ she thinks because it feels so _right_ as they move together, finding an easy rhythm. When she cants her hips up to meet his Seth presses harder into her. His hands curl under her shoulders and he kisses her like Richie does, like he’s trying to crawl inside her. There is a low, dull ache, a building pressure in her belly and she watches his face when he comes, head tossed back, throat work down the rhythm of her name. She follows him soon after, face buried in his neck as everything whites out and her body relaxes, pools in his hands.

\--

It’s late, in the early hours of the morning when Richie returns to the motel room. Seth is sleeping soundly behind her, the warmth of his body and the sound of his easy, steady breathing a comfort. The arm around her middle tightens, just barely, when the mattress dips under Richie’s weight and he slides into bed beside her. He kisses her bare shoulder sweetly but when he pulls back Kate can see the sharp, hungry look in his eye.  When he kisses her, pushing past the softness of her lips Kate know he’s seeking out the taste of his brother rooted under the slick underside of her mouth. He pulls away with a soft laugh, nipping at her lower lip with a smile. She sighs then, low and sweet like a song, feeling safe and warm bracketed between both of them.      

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Also, I'm always looking for new [tumblr](http://river-soul.tumblr.com/) friends!


End file.
